Keywords:Are important But So Is Where You Put Them On Your Page.

Everyone and his dog goes on about keywords and keyword research when they talk about SEO.

Your average keyword is basically a targetted phrase thats a couple or three words long which is designed to allow people who search for your page to find it in a natural way using a search engine. This also allows the Search engine algorithm to be used to to assess your content against the keyword to determine how “relevant”your content is in relation to the keywords you have chosen.

Naturally with the sophistication of the search engines these days your keywords could make or break the success of your site. However keywords alone are only one aspect of the whole SEO thing. Quite another is where you place those keywords on your site.

Keywords come in two basic varieties:

1. Short keyword strings.

“Social Media Marketing”.

This is short and to the point and is what most people would consider a Broad search term.

2. Longtail Keyword string:

“The importance of Social Media Marketing for the beginner”

Now this is a longtail keyword string that targets those who are beginners in Social media. These two keyword strings may or may not produce a search engine first page listing based on the search phrase used.

So having chosen our keywords the question remains where they will make the most impact.

The “head” section of your page contains the “meta tags”.
Which It allows the spiders to gain an “Overview” of the content on your page.
Meta tags have a size limit, So its important to avoid using pointless Grammer like a,an,and etc in your keywords. they take up valuable space and add nothing to the value. Choose keywords based upon relevance but also on Grammer: use Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and
the occasional verb

The Keyword Meta tag:

These meta tags used to carry more weight in your keyword placement and indexing. However keyword stuffing, and other dubious tactics have made the Search engines adjust thier algorithms to counter these acts which has reduced the importance of the meta tag for most but not all the search engines. So still use this but with care and be relevant. It counts and if used wisely and its added together by the SE together with your other SEO efforts is adds value to your other efforts.

Title Tags Containing Keywords:

The search engines do however place a lot of weight on the keywords found in your title tag. This is what defines your webpage so again be relevent if you want to be indexed for these keywords. make this title tag brief and don’t worry too much about the grammer It should be brief because of the size limits and as always, your keywords should be the first few words of the text.

For example ” Social Media marketing made easy” where Social Media marketing is your keyword.

The Description tag:

A description tag should also be in the head section of your web page. Your description should be rich in keywords, but it should read naturally and have correct spelling and grammar.

H1 and H2 tags:

These are used heavily by the search engine spiders. They are like section breaks or titles (but do not confuse these with the title tag).

Images: the searche engine Spiders cannot interpret images, but they can detect the “alt” text in your image tag. That makes this area ideal for keyword placement. So when you label an image use your keyword in the title of that image. So using our Social Media marketingas an example, you would label your image as “Social media marketing1.png”

The Body of the Page:

Lastly, the page should make sense. You want your keywords, H1 tags, H2 tags, description tags, and the text body to be applicable and in harmony. The most important keywords should be featured in the first two-thirds of the content. Keep in mind that if your keywords are stuffed in artificially, even in the basic content of the page, your page rank will suffer as well as the reputation of your site.

The search engines are sophisticated mathematically driven robots. In order to pass thier acceptance test its is important to know what the rules of the game are. The game changes frequently so its important to also know whan the rules are changing. So today these are the rules and they are current. Tommorrow they may change based upon a new trend.

Stay uptodate with SEO and other blogging stuff by signing up for RSS feeds from my site. Click the RSS icon in the header to sign up today.

Technorati Tags: Keyword Meta Tag, Keyword Placement, Keyword Research, Keyword Strings, Longtail, Page Meta Tags, Relevance, Search Engine Algorithm, search engines, Search Phrase, Searchengine spiders, trafficsecrets